Column: Freedom of speech no excuse for speaking stupidly

By Jon Dawson / Columnist

Published: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 at 08:13 PM.

We’ve all been in this situation: You’re at a party and you run into an old friend you haven’t seen in ages. You ask how her husband’s doing, and she tells you her hubby hooked up with the baby-sitter, bought a mid-life crisis sports car and moved to Tijuana.

You vow never to start a conversation with any human ever again. People chastise you for being distant and anti-social, but you’re just trying to avoid shoe polish breath.

The devastating storm that eviscerated an Oklahoma town this week brought out the best of what’s left of our diluted humanity. Legions of people have volunteered their time, skills and money in an attempt to be a small bandage on a massive wound. It’s impossible to believe every human on the planet would react in the manner these volunteers have, but thankfully there seems to be more of them than the two twits I’m about to tell you about.

Usually, there’s at least one jerk out of every 10 people. In the old days, the 90 percent who were deemed moderately decent would drown out that 10 percent jerk factor. Now, with everyone hunched over their smart phones trying to absorb every thought of every human with a social media account, any random jerk can broadcast their jerkdom to the masses.

(Side note: Who has more Twitter followers? Perez Hilton — an Internet troll who recorded a song about gonorrhea and figured out how to make millions by criticizing people who actually have careers, or the American Red Cross — a group known for helping the needy, those devastated by disaster, and members of the military and their families? If you guessed American Red Cross, then you are absolutely wrong.

As of this writing, Perez Hilton has 6,123,353 Twitter followers, while the American Red Cross currently boasts 972,440. Maybe my 90 percent theory a few paragraphs up was incorrect after all.)

The afternoon of the Oklahoma tragedy, Lizz Winstead, co-creator of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and noted stand-up comedian posted the following on her Twitter account:

We’ve all been in this situation: You’re at a party and you run into an old friend you haven’t seen in ages. You ask how her husband’s doing, and she tells you her hubby hooked up with the baby-sitter, bought a mid-life crisis sports car and moved to Tijuana.

You vow never to start a conversation with any human ever again. People chastise you for being distant and anti-social, but you’re just trying to avoid shoe polish breath.

The devastating storm that eviscerated an Oklahoma town this week brought out the best of what’s left of our diluted humanity. Legions of people have volunteered their time, skills and money in an attempt to be a small bandage on a massive wound. It’s impossible to believe every human on the planet would react in the manner these volunteers have, but thankfully there seems to be more of them than the two twits I’m about to tell you about.

Usually, there’s at least one jerk out of every 10 people. In the old days, the 90 percent who were deemed moderately decent would drown out that 10 percent jerk factor. Now, with everyone hunched over their smart phones trying to absorb every thought of every human with a social media account, any random jerk can broadcast their jerkdom to the masses.

(Side note: Who has more Twitter followers? Perez Hilton — an Internet troll who recorded a song about gonorrhea and figured out how to make millions by criticizing people who actually have careers, or the American Red Cross — a group known for helping the needy, those devastated by disaster, and members of the military and their families? If you guessed American Red Cross, then you are absolutely wrong.

As of this writing, Perez Hilton has 6,123,353 Twitter followers, while the American Red Cross currently boasts 972,440. Maybe my 90 percent theory a few paragraphs up was incorrect after all.)

The afternoon of the Oklahoma tragedy, Lizz Winstead, co-creator of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and noted stand-up comedian posted the following on her Twitter account:

“This tornado is in Oklahoma, so clearly it has been ordered to only target conservatives.”

Now what she’s doing there (I think) is lampooning something Pat Robertson said about God sending hurricanes to Florida because of a gay pride parade that was going to take place in Orlando. Obviously, what Robertson said was stupid, but I’ll get to him in a minute.

Lizz Winstead has every right to say whatever she wants, but to paraphrase an Adrian Belew lyric, it doesn’t mean you should just because you can. And what’s even worse than the initial statement is her half-buttocked attempt at an apology:

“Made a political joke, Twas before devastation revealed. In hindsight, had I understood, I would have refrained. Beyond sorry.”

Based on my top-notch edumacation at a fine public university, Lizzy seems to be saying it would have been okay to make the joke if only a few lives were destroyed. This woman identifies herself as a liberal — a group who, according to all the bumper stickers on the SUVs I sit behind in traffic, are supposed to be compassionate and understanding. This chick makes Rush Limbaugh look like Arthur Godfrey.

Shortly after Lizz Winstead lost all her stand-up bookings at the Laugh Hut in Oklahoma City, we heard from Pat Robertson. Patty Pat Pat — The Patster. I thought by this time in your life you’d have squeezed all the crazy out of your system, but apparently, the guy who loads up your pill caddy has been using placebos to save some money.

Here’s what Alfred E. Neuman’s grandpa said about the Oklahoma tornado:

“If enough people were praying, He (God) would intervene.”

In other words, Pat Robertson believes God would have canceled the tornadoes but decided not to because the people of Oklahoma weren’t praying enough.

Robertson is based in Virginia Beach, an area that Hurricane Sandy beat like a rented mule back in November. Either Robertson wasn’t praying enough, or maybe the Big Man wants Robertson to — I don’t know — shut his pie hole. By Robertson’s math, the people of Virginia Beach shouldn’t get so much as a sunburn, much less millions in storm damages.

Being a moderate myself, I think I can safely say that neither true liberals nor true conservatives want anything to do with Lizz Winstead or Pat Robertson. Some will chastise them publicly but in their hearts agree with their craziness, but anytime a bunch of humans form a large group, something is eventually going to go wrong.

As of 2009, I refuse to even participate in discussions about where the office should go for lunch. I once suggested going to a place that had several different kinds of food so everyone would have a choice and everyone looked at me as if I’d used their lip balm as a bidet.

Right now, Winstead is probably waiting for a train full of orphans to plunge into an active volcano so she’ll have something to write jokes about, while Robertson will blame the train’s engineer for not excommunicating his gay son from the family.

These two are prime examples the unabashed, pseudo-intellectual idiot that serve no other purpose than to divide and rile. Jerry Clower nailed it on the head when he said some people are educated beyond their intelligence.

To donate to the Red Cross, visit www.redcross.org.

Jon Dawson’s columns appear every Tuesday and Thursday in The Free Press. Contact Jon at 252-559-1092 or jon.dawson@kinston.com. Purchase books, music and shoe horns at jondawson.com.